Laity, P.R. orcid.org/0000-0001-8608-875X, Baldwin, E. and Holland, C. orcid.org/0000-0003-0913-2221 (2019) Changes in silk feedstock rheology during cocoon construction: the role of calcium and potassium ions. Macromolecular Bioscience, 19 (3). ISSN 1616-5187
Abstract
Variation in silk feedstocks is a barrier both to our understanding of natural spinning and biomimetic endeavors. To address this, compositional changes are investigated in feedstock specimens from the domesticated silkworm (Bombyx mori). It is found that the feedstock viscosity decreased systematically by over two orders of magnitude during cocoon construction. Potential factors such as protein concentration, molecular weight, pH, or the presence of trehalose are excluded, whereas a clear correlation appear between viscosity and the relative concentrations of Ca2+ and K+ ions. It is expected that Ca2+ ions would favor “salt bridges” between acidic (Asp and Glu) amino acids, leading to an increased viscosity, whereas K+ ions would compete for these sites, thereby reducing viscosity. Thus, these findings suggest a simple, systematic yet sophisticated control of feedstock viscosity in the silkworm, which in turn can be applied to future industrial silk production.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | cocoon construction; composition; rheology; silk feedstock |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Engineering and Physical Science Research Council EP/K005693/1 European Commission - Horizon 2020 713475 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 07 Aug 2018 10:43 |
Last Modified: | 21 Aug 2020 10:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/mabi.201800188 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:134213 |